Last Updated on March 3, 2023
A podcast is a fantastic way to get your product out to the public in a fast, efficient way. Your listeners will get to hear your personal passion and connect to you in a way they can’t do on a written page. Whether you develop a daily, weekly, or monthly podcast-or just a set of 5 or 6 podcasts to put on your site for general information-podcasting will help build your brand by: providing backlinks, driving traffic, and enabling you to sell more of your products and services.
You may already have a website, but if you don’t you should head over to WordPress to create one. WordPress is the free and easy way to set up a website quickly. There are simple tutorials available at the WordPress site as well as other places online. There are also an unlimited number of free and paid plugins to make your site look professional – from shopping carts to enhanced graphics – and there are so many themes to choose from. Once the site is up, adding a podcast is just what you need to do to stand out.
Most people aren’t aware of how simple it is to master the technical side of putting on a podcast. There are a few key services you need to understand in order and once they are in place, you are ready to begin.
Testing 1,2,3, Testing
Podcasts can be recorded live during a conference call, and conference calls are something most people already have experience with. James and Arlene Martell, co-hosts of Affiliate Buzz, use Accuconference.com for their podcast recordings. Once you sign up for an account, you just dial an 800 number for access and your co-hosts and guests do the same. You will all hear a message that says “This call is being recorded.”
After you finish your podcast, all parties hang up. After 10 minutes or so you can log into your Accuconference.com account and your mp3 or mp4 will be ready. Your voice levels are automatically configured so that no one sounds louder than someone else. The price is reasonable too-about 10 cents a minute per speaker, and you only pay for the time you use.
It’s a far cry from the early days of Affiliate Buzz when James and Arlene had to spend hours researching a company that would record their calls. Back then a live representative had to be on the call to modulate their voices. Just coordinating the logistics of the date and time for the call could be a nightmare – especially when the business was only open until 5!
Edit Out the Ummms
It’s rare to have a recording where someone doesn’t make a mistake. Arlene recently had a guest who kept saying “Umm” between sentences. It’s easy to perform quick and dirty editing with software like Audacity. You just open the podcast in audacity and you are set up to edit. You can easily trim the front and back of the podcast where you hear things like “OK. We are going to get started now.” “There are also many tutorials available on YouTube that explain how to use Audacity,” explains James.
Polish it Up
For very little money you can add some polish to your podcast to make it look very professional. For her epilepsy podcast, Arlene hired a voice-over artist from Elance to record an intro and outro. Now before every podcast the listener hears “Welcome to the show. Sit back and relax.”
At the conclusion of each show listeners hear, “Thank you for listening to …..To learn more visit us at www.epilepsymoms.com.” By reciting the website at the end it directs more traffic back to your site – a great idea, especially if you forget to mention it during the podcast. You can even add a special tune to play underneath.
Publishing the Podcast
Publishing your podcast is actually very easy, especially if you know how to create a website on WordPress. There are free WordPress plugins to add functionality to your site. It makes adding a podcast player elegant and simple. James and Arlene use the Blubrry plugin. You simply add the podcast filepath at the same place that you add your blog filepath.
There are free advance features where you can sync with iTunes so they will automatically add your new content. You can also do things like move the podcast to appear at bottom instead of the top of the web page.
Check out our previous articles:
- Top 10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community
- How to Write Hard Hitting Headlines That Work
- The History of Ghostwriting
- Drive Traffic and Build Links with Google News
- Should You Self-Publish Your Book?
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